Abstract
Christianity, a spirituality of dwelling critically in the world, is seen by some in late modernity to foster an otherworldly attitude, and thus to cultivate a spirituality at odds with modern identity. Especially in the wake of Nietzsche’s condemnation of Christianity on the grounds of its ascetic abandonment of the world, some have contended that Christianity may never have overcome its early conflict with Gnosticism. Hans Blumenberg’s Legitimacy of the Modern Age continues to be read widely. Critics of modernity often avoid confronting the book’s lengthy endorsement of modernity in light of his critique of Augustine’s critique of curiositas. A central aim of this essay is to complicate Blumenberg’s influential thesis about Augustine’s supposed repudiation of “theoretical curiosity” that funded early modern science and inaugurated the modern epoch of self-assertion.
Highlights
Christianity, a spirituality of dwelling critically in the world, is seen by some in late modernity to foster an otherworldly attitude, and to cultivate a spirituality at odds with modern identity
What David Martin names the “standard model” of the secularization thesis focuses on these empirical trends in belief and practice, which differ according from one state to another
Steve Bruce formulates the secularization thesis in the language of “loss”, in order to explain the cultural trauma induced by modernity
Summary
It is not infrequent that Blumenberg invokes the expression “secularization” in German as both die Säkularisierung and as die Verweltlichung. While little engagement with original source material is on display in Blumenberg, we can glean his definition of Gnosticism in the brief fourth-century text, On the Origin of the World This is a Gnostic text whose editors say it reflects Sethian theological tendencies, and Valentinian and Manichean sensibilities, not least Marcionite in tone. I am persuaded a gloss on it adds textual support and lends theological merit to Blumenberg’s emphasis on Gnosticism as a theology of tragic decline, of the world as shadow site, as a “labyrinth of the spirit gone astray”. We dwell on this theme in this text to enrich Blumenberg’s use of Gnosticism as an epoch-like category. Blumenberg avoids the facile binary logic here, but not entirely, as I shall show in the subsequent sections
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